Ted Weatherdon', an Edward Snowden romance
by lux mundy
Summary: Edward Snowden would like you to think he's hiding out in Russia, but the NSA whistleblower is continuing his fight for online privacy–and breaking hearts–in a location far closer to home.


I am in Carphone Warehouse, in the grip of the pure and convoluted hell that is upgrading a smartphone plan.

It's Saturday, and the shop is crowded. Men in flammable polyester polo shirts darti around the shop between customers. They move like hawks preying upon the middle-aged, those who don't know that €50 per month is a rip-off. Those who'll never use up their data allowance. Those with eyesight too poor and too squinty to read the terms and conditions. Those who will never decipher a Snapchat. I am hovering near the iPhone 5–my plan with the 4, a Siri-free model, is out of date, and I am due an upgrade.

"What you need is the Privacor plan." A small clear voice, confident but markedly neutral, but identifiable as upper middle-class American and possibly from North Carolina. I turn and find one of the polo-shirted men. He is of medium height, thin and so pale as to have possibly not seen sunlight in many months. He's wearing glasses behind which are eyes that burn with the calm, impassive fervour of a secondhand car salesman.

"What's the Privacor plan?"

"Well, Roisin, I'm glad you asked me that. The Privacor is the latest addition to the Carphone Warehouse's range of plans. It advocates a unique brand of what I term "backwards innovation", ensuring maximum cybersecurity by implementing a minimum of technological functionality.

"How did you know my name?"

"That's beside the point. My name is Ted Weatherdon, and that's not my real name. I am a Carphone Warehouse cyber attaché, and I know things."

"Things?"

"Things."

I look into his eyes, behind the glasses. They are very dark and beady, dark as a dead MacBook screen at night. Dark and mysterious as the inner workings of a Lenovo laptop's motherboard. Their intensity is almost too much to take. I am going to blow a biological circuit.

"Tell me more about the Privacor."

"Well, it operates independently of the government. There can be no faith in governments, when their highest offices are excused from scrutiny. They should be setting the example of transparency.

I nod.

"Which is why I developed the Privacor."

"You made it yourself?"

"Yes. It has been a long held dream of mine to create a communication device with absolute privacy as standard. Everything from your push notifications to your voice to the numbers of the keys encrypted to hide all traces of the users fingerprints, should the device fall into the wrong hands…"

"The wrong hands? It encrypts your voice?"

"Yes. The device runs on the Innocoux OS, a security system developed by me, Ted. Ted Weatherton."

"Seems legit."

"It is legit. No more incognito mode. No more codewords communicated to pizza delivery men through the door. No more handling screens with gloves to avoid fingerprinting. No more eating your SIM card a la Nidge after you're done with it."

"You do that?

"Alas yes, I estimate that I have consumed twenty six SIM cards over the years to avoid detection by authorities. The damage this practice has done to the lining of my gut remains untold."

"I'm so sorry."

"It's alright." Ted says softly. He has an air of visionary sadness about him, as if he alone has seen the mysteries of this life distilled into data on a screen, and found it deeply unsatisfactory.

This man, this man possibly called Ted Weatherdon has seen into the software of my soul.

"Would you like to see it? The Privacor?

"Yes, Ted. Take me to it."

"Call me Ed."

"Alright."

I follow him through a door into a little room at the back of the shop. He looks around before closing the door again, but all of the other men in polo shirts are distracted.

"We have to be careful."

"Yes, Ed."

"Maybe forget I told that. Maybe call me Ted again. It's safer that way."

"Ted. You look really familiar."

"I am not."

"I…. I think I seen you on the news."

"You definitely haven't."

He has climbed up on a stepladder and is rummaging through a cardboard box on a high shelf.

"Now, because the Privacor is still in beta, it's aesthetic and functionality is extremely limited. Despite this, I can assure you that its privacy is unrivalled by any phone plan in this world. No geolocation tracking. No social media message data. No Google "remember me" feature. No credit card numbers."

Ed is standing close to me now, eyes burning.

He continues. "No microphone listening to you as you brush your teeth. No NSA monitoring your calls and texts for curse words and.. dick pics. No surveillance. No censorship. No 'I am watching you through a camera…'"

This last part he sings, in the style of that episode of The Simpsons covering Annie Lennox. " _I am watching you through a camera…._ "

"You're Edward Snowden."

He flinches. "Maybe."

"No, you are. You're Edward Snowden. What are you doing working in Carphone Warehouse? I thought you were in Russia with your ballet dancer girlfriend.

"Alas, she left me. Charmed away by the blonde bastard Assange."

I could see that this was a sore point for Snowden.

"It must be lonely being an international whistleblower and fugitive."

"It is. But if I can make one small difference, to change the cellular communication habits of the worlds population.. if I can continue my legacy, implement the Privacor plan.. then my work is truly done."

He presents me with what is, to all appearances, a Nokia 32 10. One with masking tape stuck over the microphone.

"There's no social media capability here, only basic phone functions. No Facebook monitoring your movements and friends. The absence of a camera means you cannot have your image stolen from you. And fingerprints cannot be taken provided you regularly clean it and switch between a range of novelty click on fascias. I myself am partial to this one with Eminem on it."

He produces from his pocket another 3210, with a cover depicting Eminem in his millennial heyday. In the picture printed on the phone case he's slouched on the ground, scowling and wearing a wife beater. There's tape over the microphone on Ed's phone too. I presume this is to garble the input and protect against voice recognition.

"Oh Edward, I just don't know if this will work. I think I'll miss taking selfies."

"Not to worry, you'll get used to it. Besides, the benefits are endless. It's probably the only phone which can survive being dropped repeatedly over and over. Into toilets, onto rocks…"

He gleefully flings the 3210 against the wall, then picks it up and plays me some polyphonic ringtones. A smile lights up his face. "It's Mexican hat. Isn't it great?"

"I don't know Edward."

"Come on, I'll sign you up. Just a minute and I'll power up my laptop. You'll excuse me if I take my standard security measures.."

He produces a black shroud of material which he pulls over both his head on the computer now perched on his knee. I hear from under it furious typing, and I decided that now is my chance to walk away.

Lost in typing a series of passwords in order to access his own laptop, Edward Snowden doesn't notice me slip away, back to the shop floor of Carphone Warehouse, onto Jervis Street, back into a world of CCTV cameras and police on street corners.

I pull my iPhone 4 from my pocket, outdated, but not as outdated as the Nokia 3210. I open Twitter. I stare into my screen a moment, then I begin to type.

"You'll never guess who I just met..."

(the end)


End file.
